


See You Around

by nightlightt



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: M/M, this isnt complete by any means but i wanted to post it to see if anyone would be interested in more, trigger warnings for mentions of suicide/attempted suicide in the past
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-11 23:00:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19935934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightlightt/pseuds/nightlightt
Summary: tyler joseph moved to a new school district following an incident at his middle school. at thirteen, tyler had had a breakdown at school. his family was quick to move themselves and their infamous son to a new town to continue his education. now a junior in high school, neither his family nor friends (if you could even call them that) pay tyler much attention, either seeing him as a burden or simply not caring enough to see him at all. this leaves him with plenty of time to wander through his neighborhood in the night, carrying with him thoughts too oppressive for the confines of his bedroom.tyler lives a life of calculated loneliness, the detachment and disinterest of the people closest to him making it easy to keep a distance. this has worked out for him so far, but what will happen on the particular early morning when tyler runs into someone who recognizes him from his old school?(it's three in the morning and I just wrote this description as quick as I could; sorry it's not super polished!!)





	See You Around

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to note that this is not complete in the slightest. I wrote it a while ago (at least a couple months) and haven't gotten around to finishing it. I figured I would post it to see if it's something that people would like to see more of!! by the way, this literally just cuts off where I stopped writing. I could have cut it at a slightly better place to make it more like a chapter break than an incomplete work, but I figured I would just post it all bc why not 
> 
> !!this hasn't been beta read or anything so sorry if it's not that great!!

Tyler has friends. At the very least, he has people he sits with at lunch and in class — kids from his basketball team who appreciate his ability to win them games, but don’t know much else about him. In their defense, he's never made much of an effort to tell them about it, either. It's alright with him. He just pushes through the halls to and from classes with the loud group of sweat smelling, jersey wearing basketball jocks all day, pretending to laugh along with their stupid jokes until the bell rings and he walks home by himself. His friends all drive to their middle class houses in cars they don't pay for, hang out in their decked out basements, and play video games every day until it's too late to even think about doing homework. They make no effort to get Tyler to come. Any variation of "I can't, I have shit to do" or "my mom wants me home for dinner tonight" is enough to get them unquestioningly off his back with a laugh and a "next time, dude."  
Lack of real social connection is a gift and a curse, Tyler has decided. Outside of football practice, he doesn't have any obligation to spend time with people who he'd really rather punch in the face than talk to directly. He's discovered, however, that with that comes the price of never having anyone to talk to at all. Nobody cares to learn about his interests; nobody asks about his family or how he's doing. They probably don't know that his parents are never home. That his siblings don't talk to him. But there's more than that. There's a reason for that. They probably don't know about his mental breakdown when he was thirteen; that he beat the shit out of a kid who bumped into him in the hallway because he was tired of being nothing and the school advised his family that it would be better for everyone's reputations if they withdrew him. They probably don't know that that's why his family moved to this school district. He doesn't care. That's what he reminds himself of every day —that he doesn't care and neither do they and that it really doesn't matter because none of them care.  
But sometimes he wishes that someone would look him in the eyes and tell him that they're proud of him and mean it.

•

It's 5:13am on a Saturday. Early June. School is almost over for the year — Tyler's Junior year — and football season ended a few months ago. "Another great year for the team," his coach had said, patting Tyler on the back. That was one thing he had to be proud of, he supposed.  
Back to this morning. It's not drastically unlike any other morning for Tyler. He is incredibly tired; insomnia kept him up late and woke him up early, any sleep he could get broken into restless fractions of something more fulfilling. He rolls out of bed, stumbles down the stairs, and, stopping just to put on shoes, carries himself out the door.  
It's typical of him to aimlessly wander at odd times of morning and night. If he had to be awake so early, he figured, he might as well appreciate the soft glow of the sunrise below the horizon. It brought him more comfort than the weight of three a.m. darkness — something which he had lied numbly in the heavy presence of his fair share of times. While he walked, he would hum tunes to himself and think up lyrical strings of words. Nothing he ever wrote down, but a comforting habit nonetheless. This was a regular morning for Tyler. Until it wasn't.  
He never sees many people on his walks, mostly due to their unconventional scheduling. Maybe, if the timing is right, he'll run into an old woman walking her dog, or someone out for an early jog who'd give him a friendly nod, like he knew what was up. Like they had a connection in their taste for early morning activity. He never sees anyone interesting, though. No one that catches his attention. Not until today.  
He rounds a corner to turn onto the next block and almost knocks directly into some guy.  
Tyler stumbles backwards, any graceful movement lost to his sleepless delirium. The stranger catches him by his shoulder to keep him from literally falling over backwards, and that's when Tyler looks at his face. He doesn't know his name but he's seen him before. A panic builds when he recognizes this kid as someone from his old class. At his old school. There's nothing he can do but hope he looks enough like the type of person who just takes early morning walks because they're like that to be otherwise unrecognizable in the dull light. The issue is, however, that Tyler looks exactly the fucking same as he did when he was thirteen, just taller and maybe more tired.  
The kid, letting go of his now steadied shoulder, looks at Tyler's face like he might just know who he is. He doesn't say anything to him about it, but Tyler's pretty sure he can tell it's him when his expression changes, just for a split second.  
This is a nightmare, Tyler thinks.  
"Sorry man. Didn't mean to interrupt your walk," says the familiar faced boy. "I'll get outta your way. See you around."  
He passes Tyler and, once he's a foot or two away, Tyler whispers a shaken "God I hope not."  
He thinks he sees the other boy turn his head a little, but it's probably just his imagination. 

•

It turns out that Tyler would, in fact, see him around. Later that week — 3:47am on Thursday — Tyler sets out again to pioneer the further reaches of his Chicago suburb. He couldn't sleep that night and his room felt like it was trying to suffocate him. He needed to get out before his lungs collapsed.  
When he goes out this late, naturally Tyler expects to see no one. Who would be out but those who are already teetering along some fragile edge of mental stability? In other words, who would be out but Tyler?  
He counts his steps along the sidewalk squares, periodically humming to himself or digging his bitten fingernails into his palms just to make sure he's still there. The night smells warm and fresh and feels light in his lungs — much better than in his room. Summer nights are his favorite, he thinks.  
He makes his way, eventually, to a desolate playground bordering the forest near his neighborhood. Even children don't frequent this particular park anymore, since the playground itself is objectively awful —rusted and dangerous, full of opportunities to get splinters and probably on the verge of collapse. Tyler thinks of it unofficially as his own place. The only problem is that on this specific night, there's someone else there.  
He thinks immediately about turning around and leaving before his presence behind is noticed. He almost does, but the stranger, who had been sitting on the rusty swings with their back to Tyler, hears him catch the sole of his shoe on the pavement and turns to look at him.  
"God, you scared me," says a voice which snaps Tyler fully alert, recognizing it immediately as the boy from Saturday. "Oh hey, it's you! You almost body slammed me the other day dude. I felt bad. You seemed really concentrated."  
Are we friends? Do I talk to him like we're friends? Tyler ponders, realizing he almost never makes small talk nowadays. Does he still know how to?  
Don't say something stupid.  
"Hi sorry Iwasjustgonnago-"  
"No, don't! Unless you're busy at—" he checks his phone "—4:09 in the morning?" he says with an upturned tone, laughing a little with his breath. "Sit there." He points at the swing next to him. Tyler complies. What can he do?  
Wringing his hands, Tyler sits uncertainly on the swing as it creaks under his weight and glances for a brief moment at the figure next to him. "Nice night, huh?" says the boy. Tyler makes an affirmative noise in the back of his throat that he isn't sure is even loud enough to be heard and swings back and forth gently; an absentminded effort to distract himself from the nerves building in his chest. It is in this moment that the boy takes a sharpened breath, as if preparing to say something he thinks maybe he shouldn't say. Tyler wonders now if it may have served him better just to leave.  
"So… I'm not sure how to ask this and I'm sorry if it's awkward but… are you Tyler Joseph?"  
There it is.  
Tyler's breath hitches. What now? Do I run? Do I punch him in the face? Because that always works, dumbass. What do I do?  
He blurts out the first thing he thinks of.  
"No! I-" he coughs gently into his fist. Casual. "Who's that?"  
"Oh, no one, you just looked..."  
There is a pause. Both boys start talking at the same time.  
"I'm-"  
"I-"  
"No, you go."  
Tyler stares fixated at the woodchips he'd as absentmindedly kicked out from under his feet and takes a breath. "I am... Tyler Joseph," he pauses and shifts his weight on the swing, the rusted hinges squeaking with the movement. "Sorry."  
He feels small. He's embarrassed and he wishes he'd never been born, even if only to avoid this moment. Though he has more reasons than that, which he remembers the second the thought crosses his mind.  
The familiar stranger has a bit of a dumbfounded look on his face, like he doesn't know what he should say next. Like maybe he feels bad for asking. He kicks a couple of wood chips with the toe of his dirty sneakers. "Don't be sorry, dude. I'm sorry. That was kinda fucked up." Tyler feels his nerves tighten around his throat when he tries to think of something to say. "I didn't mean it like… that. Like- I don't know dude I'm sorry I was just curious. You're good- I'm cool with… Not like-"  
"It's fine." Tyler has to force the words past the knot in his throat and he's not really sure it's fine but he feels bad watching the kid scramble to apologize. He gets it. He really does. "I recognized you a little. What's your name?" The boy seems surprised he asked.  
"Oh uh, Josh… Williams. Josh Dun."  
Tyler sits with the newfound information for a second, trying to conjure up any memories of times where he may have actually interacted with "Josh Dun." Nothing. He remembers seeing him in middle school sometimes — you can't get much distance from anyone in your class in a school with less than a hundred kids per grade level — but he never spoke with him. Tyler never spoke with anyone, really, but definitely not Josh Dun.  
So he says the first thing he thinks of: "Uh… nice."  
What the fuck?  
He scrunches up his face at his own stupidity and tries, in a split second, to come up with something to fix the display of idiocy that is his current social performance.  
He might as well give up.  
You know that's it. That's what he talked to you for. Now he can tell his friends he met the crazy kid from middle school again and that he's just as weird and screwed up as before.  
Tyler's already planning his escape route into the woods when he hears the kid laugh. He doesn't know what to do with that.  
"I guess it's nice. I've never really thought about it before, but yeah," he says, amusement still hanging on his breath. "Your name's nice too."  
This is not the interaction Tyler expected to be having.  
"Thank you," he says uncertainly, unsure if he's being messed with or not. He pauses for a few seconds and sets his voice back into a neutral tone. "Are you gonna tell people? That you saw me?"  
Josh, who had been gently smiling in his direction, sobers up again and looks away. "Of course the fuck not. It's nobody's business what you're doing anymore. None of it was their fucking business in the first place."  
Some of the anxiety clutching Tyler's airways eases, hearing that. But, even then, it doesn't make sense to him. Why wouldn't Josh get as much social recognition out of this interaction as he could? It's not like he really cares. He probably won't talk to Tyler ever again.  
The longing to end this conversation as soon as possible tells Tyler he really shouldn't ask about it, but he just doesn't get it. Josh has no reason to sympathize with him. Before he consciously decides whether he wants to or not, Tyler hears himself speaking.  
"Why do you care?"

**Author's Note:**

> any comments/suggestions for where this could go/critiques are super welcome!! thank you for reading ♡♡


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